This novel grabs from the very first page, refuses to be laid aside, and carries the hapless reader, exhausted and wrung out, to the very last sentence. Four college friends, now in their mid 30s, head to the north of Sweden for a spot of cathartic trekking. Phil and Dom are outwardly rich, successful and happily married; expedition leader Hutch is a pragmatic Yorkshireman, and Luke, the outsider, a bit of a social failure. When they take a wrong turning in the forest and find themselves lost, tempers begin to fray and hostilities surface – and something bestial picks them off one by one and leaves their eviscerated corpses hanging in trees. So far so thrilling. Then the lone survivor is rescued by the members of a black metal band, and things start to get seriously weird. Nevill is excellent at characterisation, and evokes the terror and despair experienced by the quartet with heart-stopping fidelity. Best of all, though, is his depiction of the elemental forces of evil that haunt the hostile arctic wastelands. Superb.

PopCULT! by David Barnett (Pendragon Press, £9.99)

The genre favours supermen over the ordinary man in the street, proactive heroes over lonely, socially awkward souls, but one of the many delights of Barnett's fourth novel is its put-upon hero, Stuart Balfour. He's writing a definitive history of British popular culture, battling penury and swimming through the doldrums after the break-up of his marriage. On the trail of Carry On, You Old Devil, a film that was never made, he is lured into the clutches of an underground organisation bent on taking over the world, comprising a charismatic leader, a chameleon woman who fulfils every observer's fantasy, and an alien entity responsible for the zeitgeist of trivial culture and celebrity obsession. Barnett entertains and instructs in equal measure and spins a wonderful absurdist thriller-cum-social commentary as Balfour slowly comes to realise the true nature of the cult and the nefarious aims of its leader, the immortal Tyler.

On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers (Corvus, £7.99)

Powers's novel – on which the Pirates of the Caribbean was based – reworks the myth of Blackbeard and adds his own unique gloss of fantasy and magic. Jack Chandagnac is en route to Jamaica to claim an inheritance stolen by his uncle when his ship is boarded by pirates. Jack is offered an ultimatum: throw in his lot with the pirates, or face the sword. What follows is a breakneck adventure featuring zombies, animated skeletons and a wonderfully drawn Blackbeard, master of voodoo, on a quest for the fountain of youth. Powers seamlessly integrates fascinating historical detail with headlong action, and some genuinely humorous dialogue, to produce a complex adventure that's hard to put down.

Equations of Light, by Simon Morden (Orbit, £7.99)

Samuil Petrovitch survived the nuclear destruction of St Petersburg in a global cataclysm called the Armageddon Event, and has holed up to lick his wounds in London, now a congested megacity known as the Metrozone and run by corrupt police, Russian mobsters and Japanese gangsters. When Petrovitch saves the daughter of a Japanese syndicate boss from kidnapping by a Russian gang, his life is under threat. Petrovitch is a likeably cynical piece of work, a skilfully drawn survivor in a dog-eat-dog future, and while the prose is sketchy in places, the action is relentless and Morden has a natural talent for a plot that keeps the reader guessing.